Reckless Hearts (5 page)

Beneath his carefully
cultivated casual stage persona, a destructive energy surged in Jake's blood. He felt out of control in a way that he usually never did. He wanted to take the water bottle next to him and whip it across the room. He wanted to pick up his stool and shake it above his head, roaring at the audience, scaring them with his rage. He wanted to smash his guitar over Elena's head. Or his own head, because really, he wasn't mad at her, he was mad at himself. Nathaniel was right. He was a coward. And with this Harlow guy in the picture now, he'd lost his chance yet again. Jake was the kind of guy who swallowed his emotions, endured and
suffered and lost and lost again.

As he sang the first song in his set, a ballad called “I'm Here” that he'd written years ago, Jake ignored the crowd and stared moodily at his fingers. They wouldn't notice. He often looked inward as he played his music, disappearing into the feelings he conjured out of his instrument.

He played “Nothing Doing.”

He played “Wake Me When You're Home.”

All these old songs he knew so well he wouldn't have to think. Thinking was too much for him right now. It was like white light, blinding and obliterating him.

Every time he felt the urge to look up, he felt Elena's presence at the side of the stage and knew he'd gravitate to her, staring, his feeling of hurt and rejection bleeding out of him. He imagined her projecting this Harlow character into the romantic scenarios his songs described. It was too much for him. He could just imagine what an idiot he'd look like if he played the new song he'd written for her.

He launched into “Misunderstood,” which pretty much summed up his feelings right now.

When this one came to an end, he knew he couldn't ignore the crowd much longer and he finally looked up and, leaning into the mic, said, “Thanks for coming out tonight, folks.”

Forty or fifty faces gazed back at him. His fans. It was ironic—he should have been happy to see so many expectant, appreciative people here to see him, but somehow they and their devotion didn't count. All that counted was Elena, and she'd gone and found some random stranger on the internet to swoon over. Jake tried to block her out of his vision, but he couldn't. She'd dressed in her best spunky clothes—her pink Docs, those skintight black tights that made it so hard for Jake not to stare at her luscious legs, those layers of tank tops in differing colors and degrees of looseness that seemed always to be on the verge of falling off her body. It wasn't fair. He knew she'd gone to this effort for him. And she was so unfathomably beautiful, sitting there, watching him play.

The next song on his playlist was “Driftwood.” He doodled on his fret board, procrastinating, knowing that revealing his love now, in an achy, moony emo song, would be just about the worst move he could make. She'd laugh at him. She'd think he was joking. Worse, she'd think he was endorsing her new quasi-relationship.

Jake was glad not to see Nathaniel's smirking face in the crowd. He didn't want to admit it, but Nate had been right. The good guy always lost. You had to be an asshole to win at love.

He brought his hand crashing against the strings, a loud power chord like he almost never played. Maybe if
he took Nathaniel's advice, she'd see that he was worthy of her attention. She'd see he was capable of surprising her too; that he wasn't the asexual platonic BFF she saw him as.

“I'm going to mix it up a little now,” he said. “This one goes out to Elena.”

He threw her a defensive glance and she beamed back at him, that pure joyful smile she sometimes allowed herself brightening her face, framed adorably in her wave of black ringlets. Every time Jake saw her smile like this he was stung by its beauty, its tenderness. Nobody, not even his dad, believed in him the way Elena did. And that was the problem, wasn't it? Protecting his friendship with Elena meant he was perpetually frustrated by the distance between what they had together and what he wanted.

“Wednesday's Girl.” That's what he would play. It was one of the first songs his dad had ever taught him. A mean little Bob Dylan–inspired thing his father had written about the woman who'd broken his heart before he met Jake's mom.

He strummed quickly at his guitar, generating a vigorous rumble of sound, and then he sang:

On Monday, when the world was new

She marveled at a bird that flew

Through her doorway, into her room

And spread its wings

To show her all its precious things

Oh, I warned her it was too good to be true.

I said, he's not pretty, he's just new

Glancing up, he could see from the crimson color of her face that she was hurt by this. It gave him a little thrill to think that she might experience a touch of the rejection he was feeling. He strummed on. He strummed harder. He broke a string, he strummed so hard.

On Tuesday, he was in her bed

Cooing softly, spinning thread

He bit her ear until she bled

And still she wanted to believe

In him and all his precious things.

Hearing an abrupt thump from the corner of the room where Elena was sitting, Jake looked up. She'd stood up. She was slamming shut the flap on her messenger bag. She was stalking out of the café.

“Hey . . . Elena, wait,” he called after her.

But with a flip of the bird behind her back, she was already gone.

Jake felt like an idiot. The urge to chase after her and apologize was so strong that he almost fell off his stool. But he kept on strumming. He was trapped on the stage, and anyway, he had a responsibility to his fans.

Later that evening,
Elena and Nina walked slowly around the block, looking at the Christmas decorations, the sleds on roofs and cactuses and palms wrapped in blinking lights and plastic snowmen lodged on perpetually green lawns. They paced themselves so Nina wouldn't get overheated. Elena felt like she had ants under her skin. She couldn't keep still.

“You gonna tell me what's wrong?” Nina asked her.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Of course it is. You're a Rios, girl. We're hot-blooded.”

“Well, okay, fine,” Elena said. She launched into a long, overheated harangue about everything that had happened tonight. The smoothie, the horrible, tense
conversation in which Jake sat there and petulantly criticized her for talking to Harlow, and then that song, that unbelievably angry and just plain mean song.

“Can you believe that, Nina? Suddenly he's got all kinds of money and he moves across town and what happens? He turns into somebody I don't even know.”

Nina just smiled at her like it was all a joke, but if so, Elena wanted to ask,
What's the punch line?
She didn't get what was so funny about it.

“I want my Jaybird back,” she said. “The one who makes me laugh. The one who encourages me to dream big. Not the one who dogs me for talking to guys online and treats me like I'm an idiot.”

Nina tipped her head, still smiling that smile, still acting like it was all just so, so funny.

“What?” Elena asked.

Nina kept on smiling.

“What's so funny? Why do you keep looking at me that way?”

They'd come out for this walk in part because Nina felt like she was up for it for once, and in part because Elena hadn't been able to sit still at home, where her father had demanded total quiet while he did the books for his Laundromat empire. It was ten thirty at night and most of the bungalows in the neighborhood were closed up, the lights completely off, or at most, a pale flicker of TV peeking out of an arched window.

“You really don't know,” Nina said.

“Would I be asking if I did?”

Nina sighed and rested herself against a white fire hydrant.

“He's in love with you, mami.”

“Come on. Be serious,” Elena said. Hearing this at any other time, she would have laughed, but tonight she was in too much of a mood for laughter.

Nina shrugged. “Don't believe me. I couldn't care less.”

“He's like my brother,” Elena said. She scrunched up her nose and gagged at the thought.

“Your brother who wants to get all gooney goo-goo with you.”
Gooney goo-goo
was their sisterly code for hot, sweaty sex. “What did you expect,” Nina went on. “You think guys just decide they want to be friends with you? That's not how guys think.” She'd worked up a sweat despite the cool night air and she wiped her brow with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “They all want the same thing. Especially the ones who pretend not to.”

“God,” said Elena. Then she thought about the vision of the world her sister had just described. It was so cynical. It made her angry. “No,” she said. “You know what? Maybe the dirtbags you pal around with think that way. Maybe Matty and his narco friends—”

“Matty's not no narco.”

Elena couldn't tolerate the idea of her sister dragging
Jake down into the mud where she lived. Not tonight. Tonight had been bad enough already. She said it again. “Matty and his narco friends. Maybe they think like that, but Jake doesn't. Jake's got class.”

“Whatever you say, Elena.” Nina kept on smiling that secret smile, like she knew better and nothing Elena would say was going to change it.

“Will you stop it?”

“Stop what?” There it went again.

“Stop smiling!”

“I'm not smiling.”

But Nina was. She wouldn't stop. And as long as she was smiling in that way, Elena knew, she was implying she thought Elena was naïve.

“Just . . . ,” Elena said. “You know what? Screw you.”

She stalked off, knowing her sister wouldn't be able to keep up.

She heard her sister call after her, “Elena, wait for me. I might need your help getting back,” but she didn't care. Or she did care, but she couldn't stand being in Nina's presence any longer.

Elena picked up her pace.

The houses in their neighborhood all looked the same, Spanish-style stucco bungalows. The only way to differentiate them was by the varying colors they'd been painted. Elena knew that they were almost halfway around the block because they were coming up on
the crazy glossy purple house directly catty-corner from their backyard. It would be a long walk for Nina.

Now the guilt set in. She couldn't leave her sister behind. Propping herself on a fire hydrant, Elena stopped and waited.

She longed to call Jake. To ask him if Nina's suspicions were true. But what would she say? Anyway, it was absurd. Jake wasn't in love with her. He'd seen her belch. He'd heard her fart. He'd laughed with her as she worked out why she felt so bored and unfulfilled by Ricky Thomas and Brandon Stram, the two boys she'd dated briefly during freshman and sophomore year. They'd talked about what a relief it was not to have to try and impress each other—not to have to deal with the other person trying and failing to impress you—how they could actually be themselves with each other.

No way would he betray her by falling in love with her.

A bright, warm
day. The sun is out, not a cloud in the sky. The palm trees sway in the breeze—look out, there's a coconut falling, plop, onto the sand. The waves come in and the waves go out with the rhythmic murmuring of peace everlasting. Children splash in the shallow water along the shore. A sailboat floats past in the lazy, hazy distance.

But Jaybird's not smiling. Jaybird frowns. Jaybird winces. Jaybird stares straight ahead and strums his guitar. Tall and emaciated, he hunches in a T-shirt two sizes too small and jeans that hang off his sharp hips. He clutches the guitar like it's his last hope on earth and a sad, sad song floats from the strings. When he opens his mouth to
sing, his Adam's apple bobs up and down, up and down.

Here comes Electra, dressed for fun in the sun. Her eyes are rimmed with black in stark Egyptian lines, like always. Her blue-black hair is as spiky as ever. But the yellow-and-red polka-dot bikini she wears today, and the bamboo skirt around her waist, and the bells jingling around her ankle, and mostly, the swaying and shimmying of her hips, say she wants to have fun, fun, fun. She dances in a circle around him. She reaches out a hand. Come join me, Jaybird.

Jaybird lets himself be coaxed into dancing, for a moment, but then he drops Electra's hand and goes back to singing his sad song.

And as he sings, a rain cloud floats slowly across the beach, a small one, a disk of gray. It's headed toward Jaybird. But along the way, it soaks Electra to the bone. She frowns under the wet hair hanging in her eyes and a squiggle of coal rises from her head.

Exit Electra. She's no longer dancing.

And Jaybird just goes on singing his sad song.

The cloud finds him like it was looking for him. It hovers above him, drenching him. He takes a duck step to the right. The cloud follows. To the left. The cloud follows. He stands in one place and lets the rain fall over him.

And he goes on singing his sad, sad song.

Here comes Electra again. She's got a cake with her
now. Iced in blue, rimmed in white. She holds it up to Jaybird.

He takes a bite, frowns, and goes back to singing his song.

Electra's written something on the cake. “Play with me, Jaybird. Life is supposed to be fun.”

Jaybird doesn't bother looking at the words. He's busy. He's sad. He's singing his song.

Anyway, the rain pouring down washes them away. Electra watches as the cake grows soggy and crumbles from her hands. A single tear drips down her cheek.

Jaybird doesn't notice. He's too busy singing. He's too busy being sad. He's so in love with his sadness.

She leaves again.

The rain washes down on Jaybird. All around him, the world still frolics in the sun.

This time when she returns, she's carrying banners and flags. She races around him, waving them every which way. She pulls out a noisemaker and blows it at him. The candy-colored tube unfurls in his face.

But he just goes on playing his sad, sad, sad song.

She lights off fireworks. They explode in the sky.

Jaybird ignores them. He plays on.

When she points a firework above his head, his rain cloud soaks it and tamps it out before it can explode.

Electra crumples to the sand. She sits and she watches
Jaybird soak in the rain. She watches as the sand below him grows damp and soft. She watches as he slowly sinks in, up to his knees, to his waist. She reaches out to him, to help him pull himself up, but he doesn't take her hand. He keeps right on singing and he keeps right on sinking.

And Electra despairs. Her face, usually so white, begins to change color. It's turning blue, slowly, and puffing up. Now she's sad, too. And the longer she watches Jaybird play his sad song, the bigger she puffs. The bluer she turns. Until he's sunk so far that just his shoulders and head are above ground and she's finally blown up like a balloon.

And she pops and the tears explode out of her body and come raining down over everything.

Does Jaybird notice?

He does not. He's too busy being sad. Sinking. Disappearing in the sand under his rain cloud.